Please may i have a bike? Better yet, may i have a hug? An examination of children's and adolescents' happiness

Lan Nguyen Chaplin

doi:10.1007/s10902-008-9108-3

Please may i have a bike? Better yet, may i have a hug? An examination of children's and adolescents' happiness

Lan Nguyen Chaplin

Integrated Marketing Communications

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

64 Scopus citations

Abstract

Academic research on children's and adolescents' happiness has been slow to develop. This research provides an empirical investigation to answer the question, "What makes children and adolescents happy?" We explore this question in two studies with a total of 300 participants ages 8-18. Study 1 asks participants to answer the open-ended question, "What makes me happy?" There were five emergent themes-"people and pets," "achievements," "material things," "hobbies," and "sports". Study 2 also asks participants to answer the question, "What makes me happy?", but uses two different measures (a semi-structured thought listing task and a collage task). Using three different happiness measures, we found consistent age differences in what children perceive to make them happy.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	541-562
Number of pages	22
Journal	Journal of Happiness Studies
Volume	10
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-008-9108-3
State	Published - Oct 2009

Funding

Acknowledgement The author acknowledges and thanks Deborah Roedder John for her guidance in shaping this project. In addition, the author thanks the children and adolescents of summer camps in the Midwestern and Eastern United States for their participation, as well as her nieces, nephews, friends, and neighbors who served as pretest participants. The author thanks Allison Heim for her help with the literature review, as well as Michelle F. Weinberger and Mary Kate McVey for their help in formatting and reading prior drafts of this manuscript. Finally, the author acknowledges the guidance by the JOHS editor and reviewers. This research was funded by an Association for Consumer Research Sheth Dissertation Proposal Award and research support from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Arizona and the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Keywords

Adolescents
Children
Collage
Happiness
Life satisfaction
Subjective well-being

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

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10.1007/s10902-008-9108-3

Cite this

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note = "Funding Information: Acknowledgement The author acknowledges and thanks Deborah Roedder John for her guidance in shaping this project. In addition, the author thanks the children and adolescents of summer camps in the Midwestern and Eastern United States for their participation, as well as her nieces, nephews, friends, and neighbors who served as pretest participants. The author thanks Allison Heim for her help with the literature review, as well as Michelle F. Weinberger and Mary Kate McVey for their help in formatting and reading prior drafts of this manuscript. Finally, the author acknowledges the guidance by the JOHS editor and reviewers. This research was funded by an Association for Consumer Research Sheth Dissertation Proposal Award and research support from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Arizona and the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.",

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Please may i have a bike? Better yet, may i have a hug? An examination of children's and adolescents' happiness

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